I encountered Joseph Pearce over a decade ago via a podcast on literature: he is a man whose life was transformed through literature and the grace he experienced through it. His passion seeking the ‘good, the true, and the beautiful’ was infectious, and I’ve read him avidly ever since. Beauteous Truth is not an academic treatise on the three transcendentals, but rather a substantial collection of essays on literature, culture, meaning, and Catholicism. If that sounds dense and philosophical, for the most part it’s truly not: essays about the works of Tolkien, Chesterton, & Lewis predominate, and they’re quite accessible. Readers new to Pearce will have to accommodate themselves to his ardent love of wordplay (the man loves alliteration and puns). The book does not consist solely of essays: there are also book reviews and book forwards. Although the aforementioned trinity dominate the book, other frequent subjects are Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Solzhenitsyn, E.F. Schumacher and a few Catholic poets. Given how long I’ve enjoyed Pearce’s works, there was no question of my delighting in this. I was especially glad to see Schumacher, because Schumacher is why I know Pearce at all: his treatment of the Catholic social doctrine in small is beautiful led me to a podcast platform that also featured one of Pearce’s literary discussions. The book does suffer a bit if you read it all in one go, since the hundred or so pieces were written independently of one another and share similar quotations depending on the subject. If you’re a fan of Christian literature, especially Catholic, you’ll find a lot of worth here.